If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
LORD ACTONFederalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Great men are almost always bad men.
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Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
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Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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